


The Widening Gyre: Illusions

by Belladonna_Rx



Series: The Widening Gyre [2]
Category: Tokyo Babylon, X -エックス- | X/1999
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, F/M, M/M, Stalking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-18 02:32:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11281935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belladonna_Rx/pseuds/Belladonna_Rx
Summary: Act 2 of 3:When Subaru is injured while working a seemingly routine case, Seishirou and Subaru are forced to confront old secrets, the differences that separate their clans, and what it means for the Sumeragi and Sakurazuka clans to coexist in the world.





	The Widening Gyre: Illusions

The Unquiet Dead

 

A sharp intake of breath and the quick flutter of lashes — feather light sensations along Seishirou’s collarbone signaled his bedfellow’s waking.

It tickled.

Seishirou forced his body into the perfect semblance of sleep.

The bed was much too narrow to allow the relaxed sprawl that he was accustomed to in his own bed. It was a minor discomfort — the warm, lithe body draped over his more than made up for it, especially once that body started to shift beside him. The movements were small and hesitant, only the cautious exploration of one’s bounds within the circle of a lover’s arms; nothing meant to rouse Seishirou from slumber. It was pleasant enough, though it lacked the fire of the previous night.

He was amused at the direction of his own thoughts… as if he hadn’t attained release buried deep inside Subaru’s body mere hours ago. He chided himself mentally, _‘Subaru-kun, I think I indulge myself in you just a little too much.’_

Subaru lifted his head from Seishirou’s shoulder. The weight of Subaru’s gaze settled warily on his face.

It betrayed nothing — he was sure.

Seemingly satisfied by what he saw, Subaru held his breath and slowly eased out from under Seishirou’s arm.

_‘Fool.’_

Seishirou waited for the sudden influx of cool air against his skin that meant Subaru had withdrawn from the bed before he pounced. In one swift move, he sat up, enclosed Subaru’s wrist in a vice-like grip and yanked on Subaru’s arm. Subaru landed on top of him in an inelegant collection of long, flailing limbs and indignant yelps. From there, it was a simple matter of taking advantage of the surprise to wrestle Subaru to the center of the bed where he flipped them both over — the tangled bedsheets between them helping to trap Subaru in a full-body pin.

_/Caught/_

Seishirou read the thought as it formed in Subaru’s eyes and smiled when, with a stuttering breath, that delectable body stilled beneath him. Subaru acquiesced so beautifully.

“Good morning, Subaru-kun.”

The younger man schooled his face towards a mask of calm that would almost have been believable, if not for his racing heartbeat. “It’s almost afternoon, Seishirou-san.”

“Oh?” Seishirou lifted himself off of Subaru to get a better view of the alarm clock. The faintly glowing green digits – 11:15 AM – were damning confirmation. He feigned surprise, then flashed Subaru his most disarming smile, “So it is.”

He expected Subaru to take advantage of the gap to free his arms from beneath the blanket; followed by the firm press of palms against his chest. His whole body tensed in anticipation of a struggle — a real struggle this time. He had an advantage over Subaru in both position and muscle mass, but Subaru’s deceptively fragile frame hid a strength and cunning that he wasn’t foolish enough to underestimate — not for a second time anyway.

Subaru looped his arms loosely around Seishirou’s neck... and sighed.

Subaru tugged firmly at Seishirou until he was lying flat over Subaru's body with his head tucked under Subaru’s chin, then Subaru went slack beneath him.

Surely, he hadn’t misheard the note of accusation in Subaru’s tone? “Is this a problem?”

Subaru’s hands massaged the tensed muscles of his shoulders.

“No.”

Deflated, he absently mouthed the depression at the join of Subaru’s collarbones.

Subaru must have figured out his real intentions by now, he couldn't have been any less subtle about it… showing up unannounced on Subaru’s doorstep the night before in order to whisk him away for a “date”, where he plied Subaru with gourmet food and fine wine at an exclusive upscale restaurant before taking him to bed and thoroughly using him into the early mornings hours when he finally allowed Subaru to fall into an exhausted slumber. For good measure, he had even switched off Subaru’s alarm clock.

He nibbled leisurely along Subaru's collarbone.

He thought for sure threatening Subaru's work would have broken them out of this stale little domestic charade they had fallen into, but Subaru was still stubbornly clinging to it even though he was almost certainly counting down the minutes he could spare in his head.

Subaru turned his head, exposing — perhaps deliberately offering — the delicate column of his neck.

Encouraged, Seishirou traced the line of Subaru’s pulse. The sound that Subaru made in response was tired, but pleased. He buried a triumphant smile against the sensitive spot behind Subaru’s ear, and asked in a throaty murmur, “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I have an appointment.”

The lie earned him a sharp bite.

Subaru struggled in earnest to break free. With a laugh, he finally relented and let Subaru escape his grasp. Subaru grabbed his shirt from the floor to cover himself and fled from the bedroom. It was amusing to see something of the naive boy remained, nonsensical as it was.

He sat up against the headboard and lit a cigarette.

‘An appointment.’ Singular. It was a lie of omission. Subaru, in fact, had two appointments: the first was with a client in Shinjuku, the second was a rescheduled dinner date with Kamui.

Since his return to Tokyo,  Subaru had  taken up a habit of regularly meeting Kamui for meals, usually for lunch on the weekend when the boy didn’t have classes. Kamui had begged off their lunch date this past weekend in order to study for his final exams. Being the understanding and irritatingly accommodating friend he was, Subaru offered a postponement — dinner at Kamui's apartment on Wednesday following both Kamui's exams and Subaru's case, thus freeing himself for once for an entire weekend of Seishirou’s carefully crafted romantic overtures.

It was a masterfully executed move; then again, Subaru had been very meticulous in separating the conflicting aspects of his life. In all the time since their reunion on New Year's Day, Subaru never let slip his dealings with Seishirou to his family in Kyoto or to Kamui at any of their lunch dates. And while it was impossible, with them sharing a bed as often as not, to hide his work completely from Seishirou, Subaru had relocated his fax machine from his bedroom to a dark corner of the kitchen counter in the main room. 

It wouldn't take much to crumble the flimsy illusion of normalcy to dust. Perhaps he’ll take a trip next Sunday to check out the selection of macarons at a favored bakery near the off-campus cafe Kamui and Subaru frequented...

_‘What will you do then, Subaru-kun?’_

The quiet susurration of the shower cut off with a squeak.

He kicked off the sheets with a smirk.

_‘If these are going to be the last days I get to enjoy you as a pliant lover, I may as well have some fun with it.’_

Subaru reemerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his hips. He took one look at Seishirou lounging casually in the nude on his bed and dove into his closet with a bright blush coloring his cheeks. Subaru hurriedly dropped the towel and stepped into a pair of boxer briefs and hip-hugging trousers. The bite high on Subaru’s neck had bloomed to a deep purple in the warmth of the shower, a trail of lighter marks disappeared over the curve of his shoulder. As entertaining the possibility of Subaru meeting a client while looking so scandalously debauched was… “Perhaps a shirt with a higher collar, Subaru-kun?”

Subaru’s eyes jumped to the nearby mirror; his fingers sought out the dark edges of the love bite. “Seishirou-san…”

He glared at Seishirou’s innocently smiling reflection while reaching into his closet for a black turtleneck sweater. He pulled the sweater on over his head, tugged the collar straight to its fullest height and then rummaged in a drawer for socks.

Subaru padded soft-footed towards him — his eyes darting everywhere around the room before settling determinedly on Seishirou’s face. “You’ll have to let yourself out, Seishirou-san. I won’t be back tonight for dinner.”

He flashed Subaru his sunniest smile. “Of course. Have a good day at work, Subaru-kun.”

Subaru left his apartment just as quietly. He waited until he heard the apartment door close before he snubbed his cigarette out in an ashtray.

_‘Time for me to get to work too.’_

 

*

 

The view from the Port of Tokyo wasn’t exactly pleasing to the eye, but it was impressive in its own way — the long line of cranes picking apart neat stacks of metal shipping containers from all over the world was only a tiny sliver of the finely tuned machinations of modernity that continuously fed society’s insatiable appetite for material goods. Of course, some things just weren’t meant to reach their destinations.

The yakuza masquerading as a port worker lay dead on the ground at his feet. The man’s face was frozen in a rictus of fear. A perfectly nondescript government agent waited some distance away to collect the body and the shipment of guns smuggled inside the bellies of imported frozen tuna.

He lit a cigarette and let his mind and feet wander toward more pleasing thoughts.

His shikigami took flight over the city — its high-rises and skyscrapers passed by in a grey blur on its way to Shinjuku.

One especially delightful boon of their current situation, besides the regular sex, was having the opportunity to watch Subaru work again. In the intervening years since the Bet, Subaru had evolved his craft into one that could rival his own. Gone was the well practiced pantomime of spells from his youth; now he wielded attack spells with precision and threw up shields strong enough to slow down a _Kamui._

_‘Such a shame, Subaru-kun, how you have to waste your talent…’_

Subaru's power flared — no doubt in conjunction with the increasingly futile wails of the recently departed — and then blinked out completely.

He sent his shikigami hurtling through the sky — past people and walls as insubstantial as air — past the landlord frantically pounding on the door and screaming Subaru's name — and slammed into an invisible barrier. Even from where he stood miles away, the force of it knocked the breath from his lungs.

The ghost vanished with a prolonged, torturous shriek.

His shikigami tumbled violently.

_/A slamming door/_

_/Subaru-san!/_

_/Crimson seeping into white/_

He struggled to right his borrowed sight but he still couldn’t make any sense of what he was seeing: Subaru lying face down in a growing pool of his own blood.

**Author's Note:**

> It’s finally over! 15 years ago, this was chapter one. It’s only taken 2 hiatuses (13 years and 1 year), all of college, my first career, and the mother of all writer’s block ago to get here. Real Life tried HARD to get in the way of this one. That said, it’s a much better story for the extra time it’s taken.
> 
> This only finally came together because I gave up on proper writing time and started tapping the second half of this out on my phone on my way into work every day.
> 
> While trying to figure out this chapter’s random victim who I didn’t see coming until he showed up dead on the page (again), research led me to a BBC news article about gun violence in Japan which mentioned guns being smuggled into the country stuffed inside of frozen tuna. No way I could do it better, so I copied shamelessly.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always welcome. (Even if I don’t reply, they’ve kept me going this far through one personally really bonkers year.) Feel free to come say hi on [my Tumblr](http://belladonna-rx.tumblr.com/) where my not-Facebook appropriate writing rants go! Spoiler-y complaints about writing are highly likely.


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